Pigeonhole Principle Solutions

Transcription

1 Pigeonhole Principle Solutions 1. Show that if we take n + 1 numbers from the set {1, 2,..., 2n}, then some pair of numbers will have no factors in common. Solution: Note that consecutive numbers (such as 3 and 4) don t have any factors in common. Therefore, it suffices to show that we d have a pair of numbers that are consecutive. Let our pigeonholes be the following sets: {1, 2}, {3, 4},..., {2n 1, 2n} Here, our pigeons are the n + 1 numbers we re choosing from the set {1, 2,..., 2n}. By the pigeonhole principle, two of our n + 1 numbers will be in the same pigeonhole and since the above sets were chosen to contain pairs of consecutive numbers, this means that we ll have a pair of consecutive numbers. This means we ll have a pair of numbers with no factors in common. 2. Show that if we take n + 1 numbers from the set {1, 2,..., 2n}, then there will be some pair in which one number is a multiple of the other one. Solution: Here, our pigeonholes are a little more complicated. To be precise, for each odd numbers 2m 1 in the set {1, 2,..., 2n}, we make the set S m = {2m 1, 2(2m 1), 4(2m 1),..., 2 k (2m 1),... } That is, S m contains the odd number 2m 1 and any number that can be obtained by multiplying 2m 1 by a power of 2. Then, our pigeonholes are defined to be the sets S 1, S 2,..., S n. The above is a lot of notation. The easiest thing to do is to make up an example to illustrate what s going on. For example, for n = 4, the pigeonholes are: S 1 = {1, 2, 4, 8} S 2 = {3, 6} S 3 = {5} S 4 = {7} 1

2 For a more complicated example, if n = 7, the pigeonholes are: S 1 = {1, 2, 4, 8} S 2 = {3, 6, 12} S 3 = {5, 10} S 4 = {7, 14} S 5 = {9} S 6 = {11} S 7 = {13} Now, note that we have n pigeonholes and n + 1 pigeons that is, we re picking n + 1 numbers. This means that a pair of the numbers will be in the same set S m. But the sets S m were carefully chosen so that out of any pair of numbers in the same set, one number divides the other. Thus, the presence of a pair of numbers in same S m ensures that we will have two numbers one of which is a multiple of the other, as required. 3. Given 5 points in the plane with integer coordinates, show that there exists a pair of points whose midpoint also has integer coordinates. Solution: If (a, b) and (c, d) are two points in the plane, then the midpoint is the point ( a+c 2, b+d 2 ). This point is an integer precisely if a + c and b + d are both even. After a little bit of thought, it s clear that this happens if both the following statements hold: a and c have the same parity, and b and d have the same parity. Let the pigeonholes be defined by the parity of the two numbers. That is, the pigeonholes are: S OO = {(x, y) x odd, y odd} S OE = {(x, y) x odd, y even} S EO = {(x, y) x even, y odd} S EE = {(x, y) x even, y even} So, for example, (1, 1) is in S OO, and (2, 1) is in S EO. Since we re picking 5 points, we ll have two points in the same pigeonhole. Therefore, we will have two points (a, b) and (c, d) such that a and c as well as b and d are the same parity. From our arguments above, this will mean that the midpoint between them will be an integer, as required. 4. During a month with 30 days a baseball team plays at least a game a day, but no more than 45 games. Show that there must be a period of some number of consecutive days during which the team must play exactly 14 games. 2

3 Solution: For this question, it helps to set up some notation. Let the number of games played on day i be g i. Then, the total number of games played starting on day m, and ending on day n is g m + g m g n Now, define s i to be the total number of games played during the first i days. That is, Now, note that s 1 = g 1 s 2 = g 1 + g 2. s 30 = g 1 + g g 30 g m + g m g n = (g g n ) (g 1 + g m 1 ) = s n s m 1 Therefore, what we need to show that is that s n s m 1 takes on the value 14 for some m and n between 1 and 30. What we re given is that the total number of games played on all thirty days is no more than 45, which tells us that each s i is at most 45. Furthermore, we re told that the team plays at least a game a day, which means that s 1, s 2,, s 30 are distinct integers between 1 and 45. The s i are going to be the pigeons in this question. Now, let our pigeonholes be the following sets: {1, 15}, {2, 16},..., {14, 28} {29, 43}, {30, 44}, {31, 45} {32}, {33},..., {42} We re picking 30 numbers s 1, s 2,..., s 30 out of the set {1, 2,..., 45}. Counting, we see that that we have exactly = 28 pigeonholes. Therefore, some two of the s i are going to be in the same pigeonhole. By our definition, a pair of numbers in a pigeonhole differ by exactly 14 this means we ll have an s i and s j such that s j s i = 14. But as noted above, this means that the total number of games played on days i+1, i+2,..., j is exactly 14, as required. 5. Show that among any five points inside an equilateral triangle of side length 1, there exist two points whose distance is at most 1 2. Solution: This question is best solved with a picture. Split up the equilateral triangle into 4 little equilateral triangles of side 1 2 as shown here: 3

4 It should be clear that any two points within one of the smaller 4 triangles are within distance 1 2. Since we have 5 points in the bigger triangle, some two of them will necessarily be in the same small triangle hence, that pair of points will have distance at most 1 2, and we re done. 6. Prove that from ten distinct two-digit numbers, one can always choose two disjoint nonempty subsets, so that their elements have the same sum. Solution: Let the ten numbers be a 1, a 2,..., a 10. For any subset T of {1, 2,..., 10}, let S T = a i i T For example, S {1,2,4} = a 1 + a 2 + a 4 S {2,5,8} = a 2 + a 5 + a 8 Since the a i are two-digit numbers, and each sum contains at most 10 terms, we see that S T is between 10 and 990 for each subset T. Now, the number of subsets of {1, 2,..., 10} is precisely 2 10 = 1024, and therefore the number of non-empty subsets is Since there are fewer than 1023 choices for possible values of S T, this means that there exist subsets T and R of {1, 2,..., 10} such that S T = S R If R and T are disjoint, then we re done. However, if they overlap, we can just subtract the overlapping items from both sides. For example, if we have that S {1,3,4,5} = S {3,5,7,8} then a 1 + a 3 + a 4 + a 5 = a 3 + a 5 + a 7 + a 8 a 1 + a 4 = a 7 + a 8 Thus, this will allow us to find two disjoint subsets of the 10 numbers with the same sum. 4

5 7. A checkerboard has 4 rows and 7 columns. A subboard of a checkerboard is a board you can cut-out of the checkerboard by only taking the squares which are between a specified pair of rows and a specified pair of columns. Here s an example of a subboard, with squares shaded in red: Now, suppose that each of the 28 squares is colored either blue or white. Show that there is a subboard all of whose corners are blue or all of whose corners are white. Here s an example of a coloring: see if you can find a subboard with four corners of the same color! Solution: Let us first discuss how to approach this. Note that we get a subboard whose corners are the same color if two columns agree on two squares: for example, if column 2 and column 5 both have blue squares in the 1nd and 4th rows, then we d get the following (the squares for which we don t know the colors are colored in light blue): As another example, in the coloring given in the question, columns 1 and 6 both have blue squares in the 3rd and 4th row, which similarly leads to a desired subboard. Let us proceed by contradiction: assume that there exists a coloring such that no subboard has all four corners of the same color. We need to consider a couple of cases. Let s consider the first column of the checkerboard. Either the first column has 2 of each color, or we have at least 3 squares of 5

6 one color (either blue or white.) Since there s no difference between blue and white in the context of the problem, let s start with the case where we have at least 3 blue squares in the first column. Case 1: 3 blue squares in the first column. Since permuting the rows doesn t change anything, let s assume that the first column has blue squares in rows 1, 2 and 3. As noted above, if any of the remaining columns have blue squares in 2 of those rows, we d have a subboard with matching corners; for example, if column 5 has 2 blue squares in the first 3 rows, here s what can happen: Therefore, we need to assume that each of the remaining 6 columns each have at least 2 white squares in the first 3 rows; here s an example of such a coloring: (note that for now, we re ignoring the fourth row, hence the light blue squares) As should be clear, we re now having an issue with having a subboard all of whose corners are white. Indeed, there are only 4 ways to color in the first 3 rows of a column by using at most 1 blue square; here they are: By the pigeonhole principle, since there are only 4 potential colorings, and 6 columns to color in, some two columns will agree on the first 3 rows. This means that we ll have a subboard all of whose corners are white, as required. Case 2: 2 blue squares in the first column. First, note that the argument above would hold even if we assumed that another column had 3 blue squares. (This is because permuting rows and permuting columns doesn t change anything.) Therefore, for this case we may assume that 6

7 every single column has exactly 2 blue squares and 2 white squares. There are exactly 6 ways to color in a column in this way; here they are: Since we have 7 columns, but only 6 ways of coloring them, two columns will be colored in the exact same fashion. This means that we will again have a subboard all of whose corners are the same color, and we re done. The Remaining Problems: I didn t see too many people try the last three problems; besides, they are Putnam problems and it s easy enough to find their solutions online. So I m not going to post solutions to them yet let me know if you ve tried them and really want to see how they work! 7

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